Most relevant, The Criminal Code section 342 "Unauthorized use of Computer" http://www.efc.ca/pages/law/cc/cc.342.1.html.This criminal code section is subject to colour of right, meaning if you have permission from the system owner to perform testing, this section and owning the tools to perform this section become OK. If however you do not have permission, the investigation into this breach could expose other CCofC violations probably section 430 "Mischief", Section 351 "Possession of Break-in instruments",. as well as something from sections 354-360 which are the possessions of proceeds of crime sections.

Side note, don't break-in using any technique that involves intercepting someones communications (eavesdropping, man-in-the-middle) as that falls under privacy laws (CCofC 183-196) which are much more strict and can't be waived by the system owner, only by the sender or recipient of the communication.

IANAL, but for this case I would say the first time he found the vulnerability, there was no intent to commit the crime, he stumbled across it. The second time he was checking the other system to see if the flaw was there which seems like an unauthorized use of computer system. If he had asked the system owner (or manufacturer I suppose) if he could perform tests to ensure the flaw in the system would not be made worse by his code or his system would not be affected by the flaw, he would have been on better legal footing.

Posted
by
Soulskillon Wednesday December 02, 2009 @07:50AM
from the put-your-money-where-your-gun-is dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Ben Kuchera from Ars Technica is reporting that EA/DICE has substantially changed the game model of Battlefield: Heroes, increasing the cost of weapons in Valor Points (the in-game currency that you earn by playing) to levels that even hardcore players cannot afford, and making them available in BattleFunds (the in-game currency that you buy with real money). Other consumables in the game, such as bandages to heal the players, suffered the same fate, turning the game into a subscription or pay-to-play model if players want to remain competitive. This goes against the creators' earlier stated objectives of not providing combat advantage to paying customers. Ben Cousins, from EA/DICE, argued, 'We also frankly wanted to make buying Battlefunds more appealing. We have wages to pay here in the Heroes team and in order to keep a team large enough to make new free content like maps and other game features we need to increase the amount of BF that people buy. Battlefield Heroes is a business at the end of the day and for a company like EA who recently laid off 16% of their workforce, we need to keep an eye on the accounts and make sure we are doing our bit for the company.' The official forums discussion thread is full of angry responses from upset users, who feel this change is a betrayal of the original stated objectives of the game."